Parents worried about what their children are watching online these days should take some comfort from Jonah Hill's autobiographical tale of last century Californian skateboarding uvz: back in the days when children went out to play there were just as many bad influences laying in wait for him. Stevie (Suljic) is a young kid, around 12, who falls in with a bad crowd; older boys who hang out in a skateboard shop and introduce him to smoking, drinking and next level profanity. But then his home life consists of being beaten up by his older brother (Hedges) and moments of self-harm, so it's all relative.

Hill's writer/directorial debut is like a nice Larry Clark film. Clark is the photographer turned director who specialised in portraits of disaffected youth, most infamously Kids. Mid90s has a similar drifty semi-documentary feel but, a few unpleasant moments aside, is generally amiable. As bad influences go the gang is fairly benign and the film takes place in an endless summer of parties and skateboarding. Suljic is very endearing as a kid who can't hide his glee at being prematurely given the keys to the grown-up world.

It's funny and true, but boy is up itself. Everything is shot in 16mm and projected in the square 4:3 ratio. It buys in heavily to the all-American conceit that there can be no greater expression of existential anomie than a disaffected youth in baggy gear being disinterested and saying wassup in front of disaffected cameras under the vast blue disaffected West Coast sky. Plus it's too loud, almost painfully so. It's not the music - the predictably tasteful period score of Nirvana, Pixies, Morrissey, Pharcyde, etc - I objected to but that the soundtrack has been turned up to 11 for every action. The film opens with Stevie getting thumped by his brother and the blows are recorded at a preposterous level. Michael Tyson thumping a dazed sheep wouldn't make a sound as loud. And it just take you out of the film, makes the while thing seem bogus.

Part of Stevie's journey is a sexual initiation. A very pleasant sexual initiation, with an older teenage girl, coyly shot and mostly presented through the verbal post mortem of each party. It's very charming and you wish that had been you, but, the kid is around 12 years old and so is the actor playing him. Nutter America is obsessed with the idea that Hollyweird is run by Satanist paedophiles and seeing this a few weeks after the Michael Jackson documentary the willingness to sexualise children has to give you pause.